Uncategorized

Paul Murphy MEP is in Greece this week, campaigning with Syriza in the run-up to Sunday's election. He'll be writing daily reports of his experiences; the first of these is below.

Mick Wallace’s failure to pay the original sum of €1.4 million in VAT is disgraceful, unacceptable and indefensible.

The government in Britain will be hoping that the Jubilee flotilla of 1,000 ships on the river Thames will serve as a useful distraction while it pushes through more swingeing cuts.

If you vote ‘No’ you will be exiled to Siberia! Just about the only threat the Irish people have not been menaced with over the past few weeks. Don’t be surprised if it yet emerges, as we enter the last week of the campaign around the Referendum on the Fiscal/Austerity Treaty.

Time and again we’ve heard threats of economic catastrophe, usually accompanied with advice that it can only be avoided by accepting worse austerity immediately.

Speaking in the aftermath of the French election, which exit polls predict will see François Hollande defeat Nicholas Sarkozy and exit polls from Greece that indicate a punishment for the two traditional establishment parties of New Democracy and PASOK and strong votes for forces of the radical left, with the radical left coalition, Syriza, claiming second position, Paul Murphy MEP (Socialist Party / United Left Alliance) commented:

If it was raining soup, the man would be out with a fork,’ famously said a disgruntled Fine Gael backbencher many years ago, in reference to his party leader’s tendency to always choose the wrong policy option.

People who walked into newsagents shops all over the country on last week might easily have staggered out in a confused and shell shocked state after glancing at the morning newspapers. A plethora of banner headlines would have leapt out at them with horror stories of a raft of new fees, charges and taxes awaiting them in the next few years if government plans are allowed to be implemented.

The “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union”  is a treaty to institutionalise synchronised austerity across Europe at the expense of basic democratic rights. If implemented, it will mean a further assault on the living standards of working people and will further deepen the economic crisis.